Talk to Me: Web Content with Your Voice

I talk. I talk a lot. But that does not web content make…or does it? (You know the answer or there wouldn’t be a blog post!)

As you guessed, there are actually a number of ways you can use your voice to create web content from podcasts to animated avatars to speech-to-text programs. Podcasting is a more extensive topic so instead I’m going to focus on the couple of options Trinity and I use when creating web content.

Animated Avatars

You can see examples of some of Trinity’s avatars, sprinkled throughout the Admissions web pages.

Following the cursor with her eyes...

Trinity uses the service SitePal to create and host our fun avatars. It allows you extensive customization options, including the ability to “animate” a photo. You need the right type of photo (good lighting, face-forward, shoulders square, no smile).

It was remarkably hard to quickly find a photo of me not grinning. As you can see, the results would be better with a higher resolution image without a smile. In this case, a computer-generated avatar with the same audio might be a better choice until a good photo surfaces.

If you don’t need nearly as many bells and whistles, a good online option, THAT IS ALSO FREE, is Voki.com. There is a much smaller selection of avatars and you get the Voki branding. You also do not have the animated photo option. However, IT IS FREE (and you can be a Dalmatian, if you want!):

Do you have other avatar programs that you’ve used? Post to the comments to share!

Speak the Speech…to this Program

Often, I want to collect my bubbling energy of ideas and translate it into notes or a blog post. Ideas never come at a normal hour of the day, though. Usually, I’m scribbling on the back on an envelope and crossing my fingers to hope I can find the piece of paper again to type it up. But there are better solutions!

I have recently become enamored with an app for my iPhone called Dragon Dictation by Nuance Communications. As described on the iTunes Preview website:

Dragon Dictation is an easy-to-use voice recognition application powered by Dragon NaturallySpeaking that allows you to easily speak and instantly see your text or email messages. In fact, it’s up to five (5) times faster than typing on the keyboard.

I’m not sure about five times faster, but it certainly saves the backsides of envelopes everywhere. I find it very useful for lists and reminders. I wish I’d had it in grad school. The app would be great for study notes!

The Downside

And the real words are...?

The downside with all speech-to-text programs is the initial transcription can be less than ideal.

Dragon Diction gives me the best results when I over-enunciate and speak slowly. Even then, you’ll have some clean-up to do. The more you use it, however, the more you realize what adjustments make it work best for you.

For instance, here is the description from the the iTunes Preview site, as transcribed by the dictation program, simply reading the text:

Dragon dictation isn’t easy to use voice recognition application powered by dragon naturally speaking that allows you to easily speak and instantly see your text or e-mail messages in fact it’s up to five parentheses five times faster than typing on the keyboard

As you can see, “is an” became “isn’t”–I spoke too quickly–and it didn’t know what to do with my speaking of the “(5)”. However, the app realized that I meant “it’s” and not “its” which is always good.

Commands

Right now, there’s no punctuation or capitalization, but you can speak them as you dictate. Here is a good list of commands and punctuations available for the app.

Putting all the commands together that I located online, the text to say to best duplicate the above paragraph is:

dragon cap dictation is an easy hyphen to hyphen use voice recognition application powered by cap dragon cap naturally no space cap speaking that allows you to easily speak and instantly see your text or email messages period in fact comma it’s up to five open parenthesis five close parenthesis times faster than typing on the keyboard period

Whew! Taking that in, I would recommend doing most of the formatting “post-production” in a program like Word. Keep in the punctuations and “new lines”, but worry about everything else once you have the main text transcribed!